Experimental Study on Antitumor Activity of Gold Nanoparticles-Assisted Delivery of PD-L1 SiRNA in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Abstract

Objective: By delivering PD-L1 siRNA to A549 cells using nano-gold we tried to enhance the lymphocytes’ ability to inhibit the growth of non-small-cell lung cancer. Methods: In a one-step reaction, gold nanoparticles and PD-L1 siRNA were combined to form gold nanoparticles and PD-L1 siRNA complexes. After incubation with A549 cells, PD-1 was detected by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) as well as immunohistochemical staining. Mouse xenografts were used to test the anti-tumor activity. It was found that using a gold nanoparticle-siRNA complex, we were able to successfully reduce the expression of PD-L1 in A549 cells. The nano-gold-siRNA complex outperformed free siRNA after co-incubation with tumor cells. In vivo experiments show that nano-gold-siRNA is more effective at targeting tumor tissue and increasing T cells’ ability to inhibit the A549 tumor than free siRNA. For this study, we found that the delivery of siRNA to tumors using a nano-gold nanoparticle enhances the ability of the siRNA to aggregate in tumors, which in turn enhances the ability of T lymphocytes to combat non-small cell lung cancer by enhancing their anti-tumor activity. This nano-gold-PD-L1-siRNA complex may be a promising treatment for non-small cell lung cancer, according to preliminary results.